The beginning of our walking tour through the French Quarter

Continuing on my New Orleans adventure ... I thoroughly enjoyed our walking tour of the French Quarter. I think it was supposed to last an hour, but we were still going at the 2 hour mark. Our tour guide was quite a character and he was full of interesting information about the area. I found it fascinating when our guide shared that this street view was Walt Disney's favorite view of the French Quarter, and that it was an inspiration for New Orleans Square at Disneyland.

New Orleans Adventure: Lunch at Antoine's

Continuing to finish my journal of my trip to New Orleans last November (NOLA Live!) ... I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed our first lunch together at Antoine's. I felt pretty spoiled in the elegant setting, with delicious food, and new friends. I even had my first Martini - for all of 25 cents. Unbelievable!

Antoine's Restaurant originated in 1840 and is one of the great dining establishments of New Orleans. They serve amazing French-Creole cuisine. After lunch we got to take a peek in their 14 dining rooms! Amazing place.

Kodak moment

A bit of sadness and nostalgia swept over me today as I read that Kodak has decided to stop making cameras. What? Even though I knew that they had lots of competition in cameras, the news still came as a bit of a surprise to me... Kodak had been synonymous with 'cameras' for so many years.

My own memories came flooding back to me of my first camera -- a little Kodak Instamatic 104. I vividly remember the bright Yellow-Gold and Black box that it arrived in and how excited I was to be able to take "my own pictures". I was pretty proud of my little camera and it was always a big deal to take in a roll of film for developing, and go back to pick up the prints (and negatives of course). I think getting my camera was yet another step along my path towards independence - it enabled me to choose what "I" wanted to take a picture of, but with choices also came responsibility. The rolls of film with a fixed number of shots, and the cost of developing, caused me to be more mindful and selective. I had to plan ahead on a trip to ration the number of 'shots' as each roll was limited to either 12 or 24 shots and the developing cost quickly added up. Simple times!

What a difference from now! I just checked my files for 2011, and I took 8500 photos last year alone!! If that were old fashioned film, think of all the trips to the drugstore and lots of $ in developing costs!! Taking this many photos in a year would have been unthinkable back then with my Instamatic 104!!

Looking back...Kodak was founded way back in 1880, and became known for its simple Brownie and Instamatic cameras all over the world. I remember my Dad fondly talking about his Brownie camera. I was surprised to learn today that Kodak even created the first digital camera back in 1975. But, they were up against serious Japanese competition during the 1980s and Kodak wasn't able to keep up with the shift from film to digital cameras. It is a sad day for me to see them stop making cameras.

How about you? What special Kodak memories do you have? To help jog your memories.... here are some Kodak slogans I found on the web:

America's storyteller

You press the button - we do the rest

The real Kodak moment happens when you share.

Share moments. Share life.

I especially like that last one "Share moments. Share life."!!

Kodak, thanks for the good times and the memories!

Tulips to brighten a cold day

Its been a very cold winter here in California, with very little rain to speak of. I'm used to green hills this time of year, but without the rain we're left with unexciting brown hills. When I saw these beautiful tulips in the grocery store, they really caught my attention. I decided to treat myself and mom to bouquets of the tulips to brighten the cold winter days. My idea sure worked for me - the tulips brought warmth like sunshine on a bitter cold day. I also had fun sketching and painting the crystal vase that my parents gave me years ago.

Twenty-five and a half hours in San Luis Obispo...

Twenty-five and a half hours in San Luis Obispo (or as the locals say "SLO town") ...

Last weekend my husband and I drove about 3 hours each way to spend what turned out to be 25.5 hours in San Luis Obispo, California. We're very attached to this sweet little town where we both attended college, and where two of our sons have attended as well. This time we went to visit our middle son, Sean, as he is finishing up his Architecture degree. Although we were only there for 25.5 hours, we sure fit a lot into our time, starting with wine tasting when we arrived at 4pm.

This page is my keepsake of our weekend. We were sad when it was time to head home Sunday evening. But, I managed to bring part of our weekend home with us - my journal page 2 bottles of wine, and "goodie bags" filled with our son's homemade Toffee Chip cookies that he made during the football game. It was a wonderful weekend and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with our son. Lots of memories to treasure!

P.S. I think Oprah and National Geographic's "Thrive" have the right idea in calling San Luis Obispo "The happiest city in America". That sounds pretty good to me.

New Orleans Adventure: Mardi Gras World

Its a new year.... but I am working on some unfinished business from 2011. I'm continuing to work on finishing my travel journal of my Watercolor Adventure in New Orleans with Laure Ferlita and some other special women. I posted the first two double page spreads last year (first and second), and this post contains my next set of pages.

What a fun adventure I had at Mardi Gras World! There was to much to SEE!!! and I learned so much more about Mardi Gras than I ever would have imagined. When Laure first suggested that we all find a spot and take a seat for awhile and sketch ... I sort of blanked out -- what should I choose. I remembered the sun image as we first entered the big room (from the intro room w/King cake) - it was lying near the door and it was a happy image that appealed to me - so I chose it first (but sketched it later). Then, wandering around I spotted Leonardo... and I just couldn't focus on anything else. Leonardo touched on some special memories with my 3 sons when they were enamored with the Turtles. In some ways I think sketching and painting Leonardo was less intimidating than trying to capture a real person - even though there are similarities in the overall shapes.

I've got plans for many more pages and it will be fun to relive my adventure as I work on the remaining pages.

P.S. I plan to add the small fold-over, credit card size promo for Mardi-Gras World. I plan to stitch it into the seam between pages 6 and 7 - so all 4 sides will be visible and not take up any space on these 2 pages.

Clementines from the backyard

I thought I better capture a few of these Clementines from our dwarf tree in the backyard before we pick them and forget that we had some. I think this is the first real (although small) harvest since we planted it 10 years ago when my youngest was in 2nd grade. His teacher introduced us to Clementines and my little guy was smitten right away.